Twelve years ago, I was lucky to attend a party at Jonabell Farm in Lexington, Ky., to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Affirmed’s Triple Crown triumph. The guest of honor patiently posed for pictures with several partygoers, including one (guilty) who hugged him around the neck and very nearly had to be pried off.

Steve Cauthen, the retired jockey who was only 18 when he guided Affirmed to those Triple Crown wins in 1978, watched the various displays of idol worship with a bemused expression. Someone asked Cauthen to talk about Affirmed’s tour de force, the 1 1/2-mile Belmont Stakes, where the hulking chestnut prevailed by a head in a protracted stretch duel with his archrival, Alydar, a superb colt who almost certainly would have been a Triple Crown winner in any other year.

“When we hit the wire, his head dropped to his chest,” Cauthen said, his hand resting on the horse’s neck. “He had given me all he had. He had nothing left.”

Affirmed died in 2001. A year later, 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew was gone. For the first time since 1919, the world was without a living Triple Crown winner. And I wonder when — no, if — we’ll ever see another.

Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver’s eighth-place finish in the Preakness Stakes two weeks ago marked the 32nd straight year thoroughbred racing would not coronate a Triple Crown winner. There had been droughts before — after Citation clinched the 1948 Triple Crown, 25 years would pass before Secretariat flaunted his tremendous machinery.

Since Affirmed, 16 horses have captured two of three Triple Crown races; 1998 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Real Quiet, who lost the Belmont by a nose, gets my vote as the most heartbreaking Triple Crown loser, largely because his jockey, Kent Desormeaux, moved the colt to the lead too soon on the far turn and was left with a leg-weary horse unable to hold off a steadily closing Victory Gallop.

Neither Super Saver nor the Preakness winner, Lookin at Lucky, will run in this Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, and some private ticket brokers are selling Belmont tickets well below cost. Television ratings are bound to plummet, and, as it does every time a Kentucky Derby winner falls short in the Preakness, talk in horse racing circles will turn to revamping the Triple Crown.

D. Wayne Lukas, who has trained the winners of 13 Triple Crown races, has long argued for a significant alteration of the Triple Crown distances and spacing between races. The Hall of Fame conditioner would like to see the 1 1/4-mile Kentucky Derby shortened to 1 1/8 miles and the Belmont shortened to 1 1/4 miles (the 1 3/16 Preakness should remain as is, he says). Lukas has also suggested running the races over eight weeks instead of the current five, a modification he believes is necessary to accommodate the “modern day thoroughbred.”

The phrase “modern day thoroughbred” is, in reality, little more than a euphemism for “flawed example of modern breeding practices.” Only 16 of the Kentucky Derby winners that followed Affirmed raced beyond the age of three. Since 2000, only three Derby winners have raced beyond three. Monarchos (2001) ran one race at four; the gelding Funny Cide (2003) raced with moderate success until the age of seven; and Giacomo (2005) retired at four.

Lukas’ assertion that the current Triple Crown schedule is too demanding is at odds with how “old school thoroughbreds” met the challenge. Sir Barton, the first Triple Crown winner, won the 1919 Derby and then the Preakness four days later. Gallant Fox won the 1930 Preakness eight days before winning that year’s Derby. Omaha (1935), War Admiral (1937), Whirlaway (1941), Count Fleet (1943) and Assault (1946) all won the Preakness a week after winning the Derby. Among that list of Triple Crown winners, only Gallant Fox and Count Fleet failed to race beyond their 3-year-old seasons.

Marvin Drager, who documented the history of the first nine Triple Crown winners in his 1975 book “The Most Glorious Crown,” believes the rush to get a successful horse to the breeding shed is behind the recent dearth of Triple Crown winners.

“Today, the big money in racing is in the breeding,” the 90-year-old Drager said. “A horse wins a major stakes race, and he’s immediately retired to stud. A horse can be fertile for 20 years; there’s a lot of money involved. And it all started with Secretariat.”

In 1972, after being named Horse of the Year as a 2-year-old and before he even had a chance to prove himself at the classic distances, Secretariat was syndicated for a then-record $6 million, with the stipulation that he be retired to stud at the end of his 3-year-old campaign.

“There’s no telling how great a racehorse he might have been,” Drager said.

Beyond the desire to milk the cash cow while it’s still a calf is a more troubling issue. The modern thoroughbred gene pool is replete with the blood of “speed” stallions — flashy horses who dazzled in their brief racing careers before retiring to stud because of injury. And almost all of them can be traced back to uber stallion Raise a Native, a heavy-boned chestnut who won all four of his races at two before bowing a tendon and retiring to stud in 1964.

Raise a Native was the swiftest son of the legendary Native Dancer, whose only career loss came in the 1953 Kentucky Derby. Native Dancer battled lameness issues throughout his racing career, which ended at four because of osselets, or chronic swelling of the ankle joints.

He was a smashing success at stud. One grandson, 1964 Kentucky Derby winner Northern Dancer, is renowned as a “sire of sires” whose influence resounds through his descendants. Another grandson, Mr. Prospector — a son of Raise a Native — is widely recognized as the most influential dirt sire of all time. Raise a Native’s most notable offspring include 1969 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Majestic Prince (injured during the running of the Belmont and retired), Mr. Prospector (set two track records and was retired at four), Alydar (retired at four) and Affirmed’s sire, Exclusive Native (retired at three).

So, while Raise a Native certainly stamped his offspring with his precocity, in many cases he also passed on the undeniable fragility he inherited from his own sire.

Of the 20 starters in this year’s Kentucky Derby, Native Dancer appears in the pedigree of all of them (he appears twice in the lineage of 10 horses, including Super Saver and Lookin at Lucky). Of Kentucky Derby winners since 2000, Native Dancer appears twice in the pedigree of six of them, and an astonishing four times in the pedigree of last year’s winner, the gelding Mine That Bird, who was recently moved to Lukas’ barn for his four-year-old campaign.

The Native Dancer line, when crossed with sounder blood, like that of Princequillo, is not a bad thing. Princequillo, Secretariat’s damsire and an important source of stamina in the American thoroughbred, was often referred to as “Mr. Fixit” because of his ability to correct soundness issues in the mares he bred.

But when Native Dancer appears multiple times in a horse’s pedigree, the tendency toward unsoundness is greater. It is disconcerting to look at the pedigree of the ill-fated filly Eight Belles, who collapsed on the track with two broken legs moments after finishing second in the 2008 Kentucky Derby, and see Native Dancer’s name four times, most notably in three crosses of Raise a Native.

Apart from breeding concerns, the sport itself is markedly bigger than it was 32 years ago. In 1975, the year of Affirmed’s birth, 25,893 foals were registered in the U.S. By 2007, that number had risen to 34,206 foals. Affirmed faced only 10 rivals in his Kentucky Derby. A full field of 20 entered the gate for this year’s running.

Drager stands firm on the subject of revising the Triple Crown races.

“No way,” he said. “You can’t mess with tradition. Yes, the competition leading up the races is a lot keener than it was. But it’s the hardest thing to do in sports, and to change it would take something away from it.”

As much as I’d love to see another Triple Crown winner, I have to agree with Drager. The Triple Crown is the most elusive gem in all of sports, and while tampering with its structure might result in a Triple Crown winner, the short-term benefits are not worth changing what makes the series special.

I wonder, wouldn’t a Triple Crown winner born under these circumstances encourage breeders to continue down a path that has already weakened the breed, and could ultimately lead to its destruction?

The thoroughbred has always given us everything he had. It would be a shame to think there’s nothing left.

Contact Stephanie Diaz by e-mail at mediaplan88@aol.com